Anyone here have expierience in liquid cooling?

[Dan3345]

I have a closed loop liquid cooling system for my CPU. I took it out of my old computer which I had built by ibuypower ( I was lazy on that build ) and put it in my new one. At the time when i got it was free from some promotion they had. The cooling system works well enough but I have no idea who makes it. It has no names on it, no identification, and its for these reasons I would like to buy something name brand. I am looking at the corsair H100, I would like some second opinions. Or even some pointers on other types of liquid cooling. I am interested in full on water blocks, but have no idea where to begin with them.

 

So please share your experiences in this technology.

 

Also, probably a stupid question, but how do these work? They appear to small to have a pump on them, and what kind of fluid are they moving?

[FMod]

Water with a bit of anti-bacterial additive.

 

Do you really need a water cooling system? There are two options:

1) Relatively cheap, low-performance factory sealed systems.

You have one now. Corsair H100 is probably better.

But you'd be still paying $120 for a cooler that is only at best as good as a $60 air cooler - so why bother? Other than the dubious satisfaction of having some water inside your PC, they bring nothing.

 

2) High-performance component water cooling systems.

These are good, and they allow you to cool the GPU. But $500 is the least you can expect to invest without skimping on components. The performance gain isn't major, but you can overclock your GPU higher. Better CPU cooling is more of an added bonus. These things take a lot of time to set up, as well, you need to get all the bubbles out, and they require regular inspection and maintenance to work safely. Mostly it's only worth it if you enjoy doing all the assembly and maintenance work, more like sort of a hobbyist thing than a strictly practical solution.

 

I have some experience with water cooling from a few years ago, when there was a sharp spike in PC power consumption, but no good air cooling options yet. As of lately, there is less and less reason to use water cooling. One major market however is Crossfire and SLI rigs. If you are running more than one video card, there is strong reason to water-cool them, unless you want your PC to sound like a vacuum cleaner.

[Vindekarr]

I have a closed loop liquid cooling system for my CPU. I took it out of my old computer which I had built by ibuypower ( I was lazy on that build ) and put it in my new one. At the time when i got it was free from some promotion they had. The cooling system works well enough but I have no idea who makes it. It has no names on it, no identification, and its for these reasons I would like to buy something name brand. I am looking at the corsair H100, I would like some second opinions. Or even some pointers on other types of liquid cooling. I am interested in full on water blocks, but have no idea where to begin with them.

 

So please share your experiences in this technology.

 

Also, probably a stupid question, but how do these work? They appear to small to have a pump on them, and what kind of fluid are they moving?

 

Ok, there's 3 main types: most run on cooled water, but there's also motor oil and, for extreme situation, mineral oil.

 

Water and mineral oil are buyable in kits, but mineral oil is a more exotic alternative and what I'll spruik here-it's something you may have to do yourself. Mineral oil is a horse laxative, and to my knowledge it's nonconductive, it can be bought at most vets, and unlike a watercooling system, you simply immerse the whole PC in it.

 

Mineral Oil Cool, MOC, replaces the case with a metal spaceframe, simply to hold the parts in place. Replacing the outer case is an aquarium. The metal spaceframe goes into the aquarium and sits on the bottom, this acts as the skeleton for the rig. Ensure your spacefram fits the HDD and disk drives above the fluid, otherwise it can burn them out most ricky tick. In the aquarium's floor, you'll want to install bubblers. Bubblers from aquariums send a stream of bubbles upwards, and it's these bubbles that provide the heat transfer for the machine. Once the machine is ensconced in the aquarium, bolted down, fitted with the usual fans for oilflow(running on low to preserse the fan motors), and loaded up with some bubblers, the aquarium is filled with the mineral oil. The oil itself does very little, but the air bubbles bubbling past the hot components colect the heat and carry it to the surface. You'll also probably want to add some green food dye, and neon strips under the tank, for that scifi alien feel, but this, though expensive and requiring of some welding and enguinity, provides second to none cooling. Though you should really do some hardcore research before you try, else you'll simply end up with a PC in a fishtank.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Vindekarr

[hoofhearted4]

i say dont bother with those closed loop cooling systems. they look nice, but thats about it....for half the price you can get an NZXT Havik, single tower air cooler. its one of the best air coolers on the market. keeps up with the D14, which can beat out the H100 in most cases...did i mention its half the price? and only a single tower? so no huge ass heatsink in your PC? yea

 

ive done a s*** ton of research on those closed loop systems, cause i was heavily considering getting one, but it came down to, the only reason i wanted one, was for the clean look they give. performance wasnt there compared to good tower coolers.

 

in conclusion. save yourself the money, and get a good heatsink.

[CommanderCrazy]

Ive got a Thermaltake Frio OCK (twin tower air cooler), and on my overclocked CPU (AMD PhenomII X6 1100T Black Edition @ 4.2GHz) it doesnt pass 40C on full load. Unless its a hot day here, in that case it doesnt pass 45C.

[Dan3345]

Thanks for the input guys. I am looking for something that will keep my CPU very cool and still be quiet. I am thinking that the answer to that is the H100 because I have two 200mm fans on the top of my case and I can use those as the exhaust fans instead of the included 120mm. This way the device can cool at its max pump but I won't hear that much of it. Hopefully. I am also considering an XPSC which is a 5.25 bay squared block with pumping to the CPU, and GPU if you want that (which I do not.)

[Vagrant0]

Most of my experience with liquid cooling has been negative unfortunately. Never cared to do it myself since I keep my tower in a ventilated cabinet under my desk so noise isn't much of an issue. But have seen many problems come from water cooling... Everything from algae developing in the solution and clogging the pipes to the system suddenly developing a leak and frying when left on overnight. Air cooled just seems to be less prone to those complications without much difference in performance (unless you're doing something ridiculously process intensive (like rendering a whole movie with one computer)). Better off with air cooled in my opinion.

[Vindekarr]

Assuming a single GPU, a single CPU, a single hard drive, a regular case and everything running nearish factory clock, air cooling seems to be the way to go. It's not very exotic or exciting like a computer submerged in glowing green liquid or with used motor oil running through it, but it works and works very well.

 

At the moment I've got an NZXT Hush Black, 1 200mm rear fan, 1 120mm front fan, giant aftermarket heatsink. Frankly it's the worst case I've ever seen, not including generic beige cases, in that it's built of tinfoil and the door fell of it in the middle of the night one night, but even it works well on all but the hottest summers, even with an overclocked GTX580 and i7 quad hammering away. When I moved to Australia's south, and thus to much hotter, drier 110 degree farenheit summers, I simply removed the uneccesary outer paneling with a saw-zaw, afterwhich I've had no overheats. Good airflow, a few fans, and a decent heatsink, and you'll be set.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Vindekarr

[Illiad86]

A friend of mine thought of doing a mineral oil submersion case :rolleyes: I've seen it work before, but man I can imagine when you don't want to do that anymore :ohdear:

 

Another friend of mine has liquid cooling. I forgot what brand it is though, I know it wasn't cheap. He has had it clog up a few times and it's not fun taking it apart and cleaning the hoses.

 

I've never used it myself, never found an interest in it. Air cooling has always been good for me. I have an old Coolermaster Centurion 5, 2x80mm fans, 1x120mm. The 120 is very quiet, but the two 80s, even with them turned all the way down in my fan controller, still sound like a small jet engine :P It's a loud computer, but boy does it stay cool. My CPU never goes above 55C, overclocked to 4.0GHz on a stock Phenom 9950 heatsink. My GPU fan used to be quite loud, but it died and I replaced it with a new one that I could use on the fan controller. I have it turned all the way down and the GPU is around 62ish when I'm playing Skyrim.

 

Quiet all depends on the fans. There are many that are "silent", but they don't push much air. But, you can find many that push a good amount of air but are not too loud.They are kind of expensive, but they are still cheaper than a decent water cooling setup.

[Fonger]

Most of my experience with liquid cooling has been negative unfortunately.

I abandoned liquid cooling when I learned that it required yearly dissassembly, leak checks and re-filling.

AKA major yearly service (classic liquid cooling)

 

there may be closed unit coolers now that don't need this, but why bother when you have heat pipes as an alternative.

 

on the surface Liquid Cooling sounds good but its clearly simply a self-inflicted boil.